


The Nightingale Effect

by BlackRosePoet



Category: Death Spell - Peter W. Dawes, The Vampire Flynn Series - Peter W. Dawes
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bisexual Male Character, Doctor/Patient, Erotica, Gay Male Character, M/M, Male Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRosePoet/pseuds/BlackRosePoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a mysterious man finds his way into the emergency room not once, but twice, Dr. Peter Dawes is left to wonder about just who he is. He's good looking, with natural charisma and devilish charm, but Christian Mason could spell the wrong form of trouble for the young resident physician.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Peter had first laid eyes on him, it was almost difficult to see the pretty face behind injuries he’d sustained. The stranger had sauntered into the emergency room, pressing a balled up t-shirt against his cheek and ignoring everyone who tried to stop him as he wandered back into the patient area. “Just seeing myself in,” he said, his voice bearing the faint vestiges of a British accent to it. “Tell me who a man speaks with to have a few stitches put in.”

“Sir, you can’t just come back here,” a nurse petitioned, and if Peter hadn’t been lost in admiration, he might have come to assist her. Instead, his eyes shifted from the stranger’s face to take inventory of the rest the man had to offer. His bare chest suggested he had removed his shirt to provide the makeshift compress and a black, leather jacket covered the rest of a slender frame. The state of the man’s jeans indicated the bloodied rag he held to his face might have seen better days itself. The doctor in Peter winced hard enough to capture the stranger’s attention.

He shot Peter a wink, smirking while a nurse dragged him over to one of the beds. They made eye contact only for a moment before the curtain shut, but it was just long enough for Peter to note the color blue of his eyes. His brown hair short and the same color as Peter’s, he had also stood several inches lower to the ground than him, but most people did. Work had summoned him away shortly thereafter, but not before Peter could make a lingering mental note of him first.

The second time he saw him, however, were under different circumstances. This time, the doors to the emergency room didn’t part to let the slim, cocky man swagger through for a patch-up. An ambulance brought him in, stretched out on a gurney with the paramedics calling out vitals just as Peter emerged from the locker room ready to start his shift. He paced along with the circus, stealing a few precious seconds to recognize the barely-healed cuts and fading bruises. New gashes dripped blood onto the white sheets beneath the mysterious man.

“What do we have here?” Peter asked, talking over everyone else, taking lead as the senior resident on duty. He pushed back the man’s leather jacket when he noticed the fabric of his shirt – a different one than the makeshift compress – sticky with blood. A tear revealed a particularly gruesome injury ebbing crimson faster than it should have. Peter let the fabric fall shut again and frowned.

“Motorcycle crash,” one of the EMTs answered. “Decent amount of blood loss and a broken shoulder for starters. Pulse has been fluttering the whole ride here.”

“Let’s get him stable for surgery.” As they passed a group of people, Peter snapped his fingers at one of the more seasoned nurses and two of the interns. “Someone call upstairs. Tell them we have one heading to them shortly. Chloe, I need you over here with me.”

The nurse nodded and dashed over. One of the interns followed, while the other lifted the phone and became a distant memory. They wheeled the cocksure motorcyclist into one of the makeshift rooms and cut away the t-shirt while Peter directed the circus. Chloe delegated tasks to those who spirited over to help. By the time they led the stranger to surgery, an hour had passed on the clock and enough steam had been expunged from Peter for him to feel like it’d been five.

“He’ll be right as rain,” Chloe said, reaching to pat him on the shoulder as he trudged out from cleaning up. “Probably out of here sooner than you think.”

Peter offered her a wan smile in return. “It’s going to be a long day if that’s what we got out of the gates,” he said. It inspired her to chuckle, but as she wandered back to work, his fledgling smile faded and eyes shifted to the last place his patient had been. Images replayed in his mind of the dare he had received in just one glance – one small wink – and a riddle played out before him, encapsulated in two snapshots. Whoever this man was and wherever he had come from, something had dragged him out from the wrong side of the tracks.

Peter tried not to be intrigued by it.

And failed miserably.

By the end of the grueling shift, he felt ready to trudge to the subway and back to his apartment. As he pulled out his earbuds and cinched his backpack up his shoulder, however, he passed by the elevators and stopped. The stranger stopped being his patient the moment he left the emergency room, but wondering about him became a song playing on repeat in his mind. ‘ _Chloe said he would be fine and I agree_ ,’ Peter thought.

If he had to be honest with himself, it wasn’t about that, though.

Sighing, exasperated with himself and realizing he might have to dig deeper than the fumes keeping him on his feet, Peter pressed the up arrow and pocketed his earbuds again. He shook his head as he waited for the elevator to descend, and pulled out his iPhone in some effort to pretend being unaffected. A few thumb swipes across the screen preceded the metal doors parting and the electronic crutch remained out through the ascent to the patient room floor. When he stepped out from the elevator, he slid the phone back into hiding, seeing the nurse’s station ahead and forming a resolution in his mind. He would ask about the patient, if just to sate this needling curiosity, but that was all.

Flashing a brilliant smile at the nurse who peered up at him, he sped his pace to her. “Joanna, how has the night shift been treating you?” he asked once he was within earshot.

He placed his hands on the counter separating them while she sighed. “I hit the wall three hours ago,” the slender brunette said, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of both hands. “Still have four left in this shift.”

“You sound like I did earlier.” His smile faded, given over to concern. “Want me to bring you coffee?”

“Only if you’re willing to help me start the IV.” Joanna’s hands fell back to her lap. She lifted to a stand. “I should do my rounds, but I’ve been avoiding it. I’d like to think walking around would help, but the moment I sit down again, I’m a goner.” She turned to cast a quick glance back to the white board with their list of patients before pivoting to line Peter in her sights. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs looking gorgeous and saving lives?”

Peter laughed at the playful curl of her lips. “I’m heading home.” He patted his backpack for emphasis. “A few hours of sleep and back at it again. You’ll have to be gorgeous for the both of us in the meantime.”

“Oh, stop. I know you didn’t come up here to flirt with me, Dr. Dawes.” She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter. “Who are you avoiding?”

“Nobody.” Another laugh summoned the brilliant smile back into place. “No, I had a patient earlier and was curious to see how he did in surgery. I’m not sure if you guys have him or ICU.”

“Ah ha.” Joanna turned back toward the board. “Well, we’ll see about that. What was the patient?”

“Motorcycle accident. We never really came close to losing him, but getting him stable was still a bitch.”

“Yep. I know who you’re talking about, and we have him.” She lifted a hand, tapping her bottom lip with a finger until her face lit up. “There he is.” She pointed. “Lifted him up enough from a narcotic haze to finally get an ID from him. Christian Mason.”

“Christian?” Peter felt like adding _seriously_ to the end of that, but managed to bite his tongue. His gaze followed to where Joanna pointed and he nodded. “If you guys had him talking, that means he’s better off than when we had him.”

“Oh, he’s a riot. Until the morphine put him under again, he kept trying to flirt with the nurses. And the doctors.” She turned, catching Peter’s eye and forcing his focus back to her. The curl of her lips turned downright devious. “You came to check on your patient, did you?”

His eyes widened, a blush forming on his cheeks before he could stop it. “I… did. I was concerned,” he said. Peter reached to scratch at the back of his neck.

Joanna raised an eyebrow at him again. “Sure,” she said. “That and two bucks _would_ get me a cup of coffee.” Glancing one way, and then the other, she looked at Peter again and shrugged a little. “Feel like jotting down his vitals for me? Get you a little peek and you can be on your way home?”

A lump formed in Peter’s throat as his arm dropped to his side again. “Yes, sure. I could do that. Especially if it’d be some help to you.” Lowering his backpack down onto the floor, he kicked it closer to the area behind the desk and perked an eyebrow at Joanna. “Don’t give me that look. I didn’t intend to actually go in to see him.”

The nurse produced a pen and a piece of folded paper from the pockets of her scrubs. “Come all this way and not at least steal a glance?” She shook her head. “I need to teach you better than that.”

“I’m all ears.” He took the writing instrument as it was offered and tucked the paper in his pocket. “Though I’m strongly suspecting you just want me to do your rounds for you.”

“If only they’d brought in more pretty men today.”

She winked and Peter laughed as he turned his back on her. “Room 418,” she called out and he gave her a thumb’s up in return without facing her again. A casual gait marked his journey down the hall, quiet except for the faint sound of televisions droning infomercials and other staff talking in hushed tones. He reached an open door and paused by the doorway before entering.

The rhythmic noises coming from the machines around one bed provided its own technological symphony, uninterrupted by any other occupants in the dark room. The television remained off, and other than the sound of the occupant breathing, there wasn’t anything else to distract Peter from focusing on him. Faintly, he remembered that bare chest, the one he’d been given a much better view of days before cutting through a shirt to assess a bleeding wound. Christian was the kind of man who looked good without even trying.

Even if he wasn’t the type you introduced to your parents.

“Well, at least that’s not a problem for me,” Peter murmured, exhaling a breath rife with tension. He clicked on the pen while shifting his attention back to the beeping monitors. Sleeping Beauty had an oxygen tube running under his nose and IVs dripping fluids and pain medication into him. His blood pressure and pulse remained steady and the numbers Peter jotted onto the sheet bore promise. “Should have you on your way home within a few days, I’d think. Just like Chloe said.”

“Is that a date then?” a hoarse, groggy voice responded, just loud enough for it to startle Peter. The young doctor took a step backward, his gaze shooting to Christian as the other man’s eyes fluttered open. Christian cleared his throat, his voice gaining confidence. “Heaven knows I could use a drink,” he continued. “Perhaps three.”

Peter swallowed down a lump that had formed in his throat, gathering professionalism back in scraps and clutching it against his chest. Oh God, why did he have to have that accent?  “I think you might have to wait a while longer before you get that drink,” he said. “Discharged from the hospital doesn’t necessarily mean back to business as usual.”

“Just meeting me and already, you know my usual business.” A slight shift in the way he was lying provoked a groan from Christian. Peter motioned closer, but the infirmed man held up a hand as he settled back into place. “Seems I banged myself up proper this time.”

“Yes, you were in an accident, Mr. Mason.”

“Hmm?” He furrowed his brow, the gesture the first Peter observed which might be a side effect of the morphine drip. Recollection appeared laborious from the other man. “Oh, right. Yes, someone else told me that, I think.”

“They said you told them your name. I’m sure they tried to explain what had happened then.” Peter studied Christian and weighed his next words. “You’re at least looking better than you had when you first came in.”

A smirk danced dreamily across Christian’s lips. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Dr. –”

“Dawes. You can call me Peter.” He laughed. “And I don’t mean that to flirt. You looked like hell when they first wheeled you in.” Stepping closer, a soft sigh preceded him lowering to a seated position on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Dejected. You weren’t flirting with me.” The continued presence of an amused expression betrayed his words, even if it gained a flicker of sobriety. “You were there when they brought me in?”

Peter nodded. “You came to us first in the ER.”

“You seem a long way from the emergency room, unless that’s where they keep people these days.”

“No. You’re in the patient rooms. I just thought I’d…” He trailed off. The hand still clutching the pen reached back, two fingers relenting in their grip of the writing instrument to scratch at his neck. “I wanted to make sure you were doing better. You were my first case of the night.”

Christian lingered in silence for a moment, just long enough for Peter to believe the drugs had finally slipped the other man into a haze of incoherence. The smile relaxed, but the curl refused to even, crystal blue irises fixed on Peter throughout the quiet that settled between them. A fingertip brushed against Peter’s other hand, where it rested on the bed with a piece of paper still clutched in its grip. The touch caused heat to pool in the doctor’s stomach.

“I trust this means you’ll come back again, when I can express proper thanks,” Christian said, his fingers retracting. Peter didn’t need to look down in order to see them slip away. He felt the void they left behind.

Slowly, he nodded. “Maybe after my shift tomorrow night,” he said before he could reconsider. His answer hung in the air, offered too eagerly for his taste. “If I don’t have to slip away to get some rest. The shifts in this place are brutal.”

“All work and no play makes Peter a dull boy.” Christian hummed thoughtfully, his eyes shutting for a moment. As they opened again, Peter couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a plea in them. “At least say hello, then. A glimpse of those pretty green eyes could only aid in my recovery.”

“We’ll see about that.” Peter winked, and though he lifted to a stand, he lingered for a few extra seconds before nodding at the other man. “Get some rest. That’ll probably help more.”

“Doctor’s orders?”

“Doctor’s orders.” A warm smile tugged at Peter’s mouth. He turned away from Christian before the look on the other man’s face threatened to force him to stay the rest of the night. Already, he was toeing the line of overstepping his boundaries and the last thing he needed this close to finishing his residency was trouble in both his professional and personal life. Even if the warm, flirtatious words and gentle coaxing continued spinning through his mind.

Even if the touch of Christian’s fingers still made his own tingle.

After returning the sheet of paper and pen to Joanna, Peter trudged from the building and to the subway. The sun had barely started peeking over the horizon, illuminating the city and threatening to stir its occupants into life, starting the cycle of chaos anew. Peter deposited his keys by the front door of his apartment and sloughed off his backpack while turning the lock and securing himself inside. As silence settled in the empty apartment, Peter breathed a sigh of relief.

“Shower,” he murmured, emptying his pockets and tossing his coat aside. Both hands lifted, rubbing at his face while the sounds of his next door neighbors rousing disrupted the quiet. His tired eyes lifted to the loft overhead, and the bed calling out his name. By the time he finished cleaning up, everyone would be off to work and perhaps then, he could sneak in enough rest to last the next shift.

Maybe by then, he might have forgotten about Christian, too.

Exhaling a deep breath, he flicked on the light switch in his small bathroom and shut the door. The sight of a twenty-eight year old man with dark circles under his eyes greeted him, but the color of his irises stuck out to him the most. “ _A glimpse of those pretty green eyes could only aid in my recovery_.” Peter felt another shiver crawl its way up his spine and temptation nip at him once more. Ever since he’d known he liked men, there’d been two types that caught his interest above the others. The first, he called fine dining – the classier men of the lot. The ones who wore suits like it was their natural skin, like the specialists Peter would undress with his eyes while forcing sandwiches down his throat in the cafeteria.

Bad boys comprised the other group. Peter frowned at his reflection in the mirror before turning away from it. His parents had died before he’d started dating, but somehow he knew they wouldn’t approve of how many times people like Christian turned his head. Stripping off his scrubs and tossing them into a growing pile of laundry, he started the shower and stood waiting for the water to heat, tempted to slip under the stream while it could still chill him to the bone.

‘ _You want him already_ ,’ he thought. ‘ _He’s a patient, for crying out loud._ ’

“Keeping my hands to myself,” he declared to an audience of one and finally pulled back the curtain enough to step inside. Water covered his face and streamed down his body, lukewarm at first and gradually turning scalding. Peter rotated his shoulders and stretched his limbs, letting the heat work out the kinks in his muscles, then ran his fingers through his hair to saturate the unruly locks. His skin was buzzing, the tingles surfacing and gathering while he called to mind how long it’d been since he’d had a steady boyfriend.

‘ _Just one touch. You’ve jerked off to worse things._ ’

He groaned and flexed his fingers, attempting to resist the temptation. His arm lowered and palm hovered between his legs, the internal war waged and lost with the first skim of his hand. His cock reacted, almost coercing him to do it again. Before he knew it, his fingers had wrapped around himself, giving the limp length its first tug.

“ _I trust this means you’ll come back again, when I can express proper thanks_.”

Peter’s eyes fluttered shut, the fantasy taking hold. In his mind, he envisioned Christian slipping into the shower, the smug bastard uninjured and clothed only in what God had given him as he encroached on Peter’s personal space. “Need some help with that?” he asked, inclining his head so that his lips might brush near Peter’s, knocking the taller man’s hand away to take hold of it himself.

“Oh fuck, yes…” The proclamation escaped Peter’s mouth before he could bite it back. It wasn’t his palm slipping up and down the hardening shaft any longer, it was Christian’s, slow and taunting as a devious grin surfaced on the other man’s face. His tongue flicked out, tracing across Peter’s bottom lip while the motion of his hand increased in tempo, still maddening; deliberate. With an invitation latent in it for Peter to lose control.

“Yes…” Christian said the word. Or he did. He couldn’t be sure once the fantasy evolved. Christian bit his lip and rocked his hips against Peter, pressing their bodies flush, the shorter man stroking him faster when both of them became hungry for completion. Tipping his head back, Peter felt the water from the shower pour down his back while he braced himself against the wall, coils of tension tightening in his groin and a grunt preceded the cry his mouth produced as the shockwaves took him over. Grasping onto the slippery tile, he felt his turn knees weak and his cock pulse in time with his climax. For a few moments, the sum total of existence was the other man, and what he had just done to him.

Slowly, the world filtered back into focus. The last embers of Christian’s ghost dissipated, leaving him standing alone again, his eyes opening while he struggled to catch his breath. Swallowing against a dry throat, he straightened his posture, shivering with the last jolts running up his spine.

It’d been too long since the fantasies had been reality, but that seemed to be his life these days.

The remainder of the shower lasted half the time. Fatigue settled in again, making its unwelcome presence known through the final rinse and toweling off. Peter plodded past the barely-used kitchen on his way to the loft and climbed the steep flight of stairs up to where he slept. Somehow, he managed to throw on a pair of pajama pants before collapsing into bed, and remembered to set his alarm while curling under the covers. The promise of five hours of sleep, and the heady buzz from coming threatened to pull him under.

Yes, he still saw Christian in his mind as he shut his eyes, but the warning came with it. Bad boys never knew how to tend a heart like his, and were an indulgence he’d long since learned he should stay away from, regardless of how unattainable the suits were in contrast. His parents would’ve wanted him pursuing something less dangerous; someone a hell of a lot more stable. Still, he couldn’t let it go.

If this had the potential to be so bad, then how come it felt so damn good?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

“… I knew you were trouble when you walked in, so shame on me now _…_ ”

One bleary eye opened before the other, the expression on Peter’s face registering confusion as his waking brain tried to determine what was happening. Streams of music poured from the clock radio on the nightstand beside his bed, the volume set far louder than might have been considered reasonable. He blinked against sleep, his eyelids wanting to shut again despite the cacophony of pop music blaring offense into his ears.

That was, until his phone joined the chorus.

Peter groaned and reached first for the radio. Slapping at it, he managed to hit a button that stopped the racket, and then fumbled through the tangled mess of sheets for where his phone had disappeared. With one swipe of his finger, the sirens ceased, but by that point, the damage had already been done. Stretching his limbs first, Peter flopped outward from the curled position he had maintained while sleeping and yawned. Another afternoon was upon him, and another twelve hours at the hospital lay in wait.

The coffeemaker percolated while the microwave heated something that vaguely resembled food. It took until he polished off his coffee for him to remember Christian, giving the other man one last shiver of acknowledgement as he gelled down his unruly locks of brown and finished shaving. Out the door a mere few minutes later, he had determined avoiding the patient would be in his best interests for the remainder of Christian’s stay. Even if a pang of guilt echoed at recalling those plaintive blue eyes.

It bore all the earmarks of potential success. He had the will to resist temptation, and spent the subway ride into work going over the reasons why he should follow through it. The first and foremost was his professional career, and how much fire he’d be playing with fraternizing with a patient. Beyond that, however, he reminded himself he needed something more stable than his normal fare; something with a much better chance at being a relationship and not just a casual fling. Pretty or not, Christian didn’t seem like the type of guy who knew the word commitment, and though the aura of mystery was enticing, it also bore that reminder that something shady lurked on the other side of that seductive grin.

Striding through the automatic doors of Temple University Hospital, Peter squared his shoulders. It was safer that way, he told himself, as he waded into another night of drunks, overdoses, and bar fights.

The sun crested the horizon twelve hours later and brought with it the end of one shift. When his alarm clock summoned him awake once more, he started the whole process all over again, without another thought spared toward Christian Mason. Almost immediately after he changed into his scrubs, a patient walked through the doors complaining of heart palpitations and right after that, a man who with chest pain which turned out to be indigestion. By the third case of the night, Peter had hit a stride, which carried him through his first break of the night.

As he returned to the floor, however, he paused in front of one of the bays and furrowed his brow at the shut curtain. The silhouette of an IV pole and of a man lying on the cot piqued his curiosity, and as he glanced around for an attending doctor, all of his co-workers appeared embroiled in different patients. ‘ _We keep people waiting all the time_ ,’ he thought. ‘ _And if this one’s getting admitted, then there’s probably a paperwork bottleneck_.’ Still, there seemed to be something familiar about this one, luring him closer to the bay.

No, he told himself. It couldn’t be.

Peter pulled the curtain back enough to slip inside before drawing it shut behind him. As he turned, he caught his breath and blinked while the man lying before him smiled at the expression on Peter’s face. “Dr. Dawes,” Christian said, his eyes sparkling with mischief while his grin took on a playful tenor. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were avoiding me.” One arm in a cast, a sling kept the useless limb close to his body while his other hand rested on his stomach. He shifted more upright, wincing against the effort and moving enough to knock a robe draped across his shoulders open.

Attempting not to glance downward, Peter kept his eyes trained on Christian’s face. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs?” he asked.

Christian shrugged with his good shoulder. “What I should be doing and what I am are often two completely different subjects. Do you always invite yourself into private places, Doctor?”

Peter felt a flush creep up his neck. “I had the suspicion you didn’t belong here. It turns out I was right.” The tone of his words attempted to register chastisement. Peter wasn’t sure if they achieved that end, however. “All things considered, you shouldn’t even be up walking.”

“Do I look like the sort of man who takes well to being confined to bed two days in a row?”

“I –” A laugh escaped his lips before he could stop it. “No, I admit, you don’t, but you’re going to have people looking for you if you don’t already.”

“Oh, I’m certain they’re delaying their search for a few minutes. Possibly hoping that I slipped away. The nurse was ready to sedate me.” Tilting his head, Christian eyed the other man from feet to shoulders, his gaze finally returning to meet Peter’s as his smile broadened. “How am I mending, Dr. Dawes? To your satisfaction?”

Peter sighed, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m not your attending physician.” Christian patiently held his gaze, until Peter shook his head and paused to steal a glance outside the curtain. Disappearing back inside the bay, he drifted closer to the IV pole and crouched to study the display. When Christian shut his robe and turned to face Peter, the young doctor considered it a small mercy. “They dialed you down from morphine,” Peter said. “How has your pain been?”

“Manageable,” Christian said, allowing his feet to dangle from the cot. “But I’ve been shot before. This is a stroll through Piccadilly in comparison.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” Peter peered back up at Christian and smirked. “I wondered if the accent was an act.”

“Many things are with me, love. The way I speak isn’t one of them.” His tongue darted out, licking his lips. While it appeared a subconscious act, something about the way Christian did it bordered on obscene. “Why, do you fancy it?”

“Your accent?” Peter fought against another flush, perking an eyebrow at the other man. Slowly, he rose to a full stand. “I think you’re confusing the purpose of a hospital, Christian. It’s supposed to be for healing, not picking up doctors.”

“Doctors. Nurses. Why discriminate?” While his expression sobered, it lost none of its smolder. “You remembered my name.”

“It was hard to forget.” Peter spoke the words before he could consider them, and winced against their issuance the moment they passed through his lips. “I mean to say, it’s an ironic name for you. I’m sure you get that a lot.”

“Only every other week for the better part of my life. You are a poor liar.”

“What was I lying about?”

“The intention of your comment. Your ears are pink right now.” A pause punctuated his comment. He waited until he had Peter’s full attention again before speaking, only this time the volume of his voice had lowered. Its tone crept across Peter’s skin like silk, reminding the young doctor of the shower while temptation threatened to coil itself around him. Peter swallowed hard, watching Christian slide down from the cot. “Tell me, who you are chastising not to confuse the purpose of a hospital, me or you?”

Peter froze in position. Something about the look in the other man’s eyes held him captive, threatening not to let him go. “Either way, it applies,” he said. “I should be calling security and telling them to take you back upstairs.”

“Should be. Could be. Aren’t,” Christian retorted. “I’m not alone in noticing that, am I?” His feet touched the floor, one after the other, and as his good hand lifted from the bed, it lowered to his side. The way the patient paced closer to Peter bore deliberate slowness to it, drawing out the moment. “You didn’t come to see me, but you’ve thought about me, haven’t you?”

A lump threatened to form in Peter’s throat. “I think about the patients I’ve had a lot.”

“Do you come up to their rooms to visit them all personally, too?” He raised an eyebrow, stopping well within the taller man’s personal space. Craning his neck, Christian peered upward at him, the hand lifting once more, fingers toying with the neckline of Peter’s scrubs. “How did you picture me? Lying out on my bed, unable to resist while you straddled me and had your way with me? Or isn’t that your particular brand of fantasy?”

The next breath which escaped Peter’s lungs bore a heavy amount of tension. “Not my preference, no.”

“You’re going to drive me mad with curiosity.”

“It’s not something I want to talk about.”

Christian chuckled softly. His fingers lifted, only to stray to the white coat which hung from Peter’s frame. Gathering a fistful of it, he used his hold on the doctor to press their bodies together, lifting up onto his tiptoes until his mouth hovered above Peter’s. They brushed lips. “Well, take what you want from me,” he said. “You have me right here.”

Peter shut his eyes. “I can’t kiss you, Christian,” he countered. “You’re a patient and we have rules about that. If I’d met you somewhere else, maybe, but not here.”

“So, you won’t deny that you’re attracted to me.”

The weight of Christian’s gaze prompted Peter to lift his lids once more, his eyes regarding the shorter man. As Christian kissed the corner of his mouth, a groan threatened to rumble from Peter’s throat. “I think it’s probably too late for me to deny that.”

“I was going to refute you if you tried. There’s evidence to suggest otherwise.” His hand released its hold on Peter’s coat, fingertips dancing down the other man’s chest while on a southward trek. As his palm shifted against the fabric of Peter’s scrubs, it pressed down until stopping just shy of the young doctor’s waistline. “Then again, perhaps you want me to remind you of that evidence.”

“Christian, no. Somebody will see us.”

“Isn’t there a utility closet in this godforsaken place? Give a man a thrill before confining him back into bed, especially if you have no plans of joining me.”

“I’m working.”

“Yes, being a very attentive doctor, I’m sure.” Warm breath caressed Peter’s skin as Christian chuckled softly. “Such a Boy Scout. So bent upon doing the right thing. There’s a part of you screaming out to do something reckless. Can’t you hear it?” Christian tugged at Peter’s bottom lip with his teeth. As the young doctor shuddered, the patient laughed. “You are pent up, love. Don’t tempt me to get down on my knees right here in the Emergency Room.”

“Please don’t do that,” Peter said, breathing the words out and nearly apt to beg with them. A part of his mind summoned the picture of Christian undoing the ties of his pants and pushing them down, lowering onto his knees and taking Peter’s cock in his mouth. His lips sliding up and down the shaft, head bobbing while Peter protested his way straight through a climax. ‘ _No. Stop. Don’t… stop… Don’t stop_.’ The thought turned vivid enough to prompt Peter away from Christian. He stepped back, dislodging himself from the shorter man and taking a series of breaths to steady himself.

Christian laughed, his face alit with amusement. “I would give my good arm for a peek into where your mind just went,” he said. Peter didn’t know whether to be aroused or perturbed at the way the other man’s smile broadened. “Dr. Dawes, you’re in danger of breaking my heart.”

“Because I won’t disappear into a supply closet with you?”

“No, because you seem bent to refuse me altogether.” Christian sighed, though it sounded overly dramatic. “I suppose I can take a hint.”

“Wait, I…” Peter gritted his teeth. His hand lifted fingers combing through the locks of his hair while he stole a glance toward the side. Nobody, it seemed, had paid them any attention. People shuffled around the bays in their normal observance of hospital life, the ebb and flow having a certain kind of rhythm he always found comforting, but everyone appeared ignorant of anything else.

Peter turned his head, his gaze returning to Christian. As he peered into those clear, blue eyes, the look behind them turned coaxing; unrelenting. “Christian, I’m a busy guy,” he began, shifting slightly in position as if to give certain parts a chance to calm down. He fought the urge to reach down and adjust himself while continuing. “Dating always turns out to be a train wreck and while I’d love nothing more than to push you into an open room and forget about the rest of my shift, you’re a patient and I’m a doctor. I could get into a lot of trouble for a guy I barely know.”

The lazy smile springing to life across Christian’s lips reached his eyes, the look of amusement refusing to wane anytime soon. He nodded, attempting to appear thoughtful while glancing away and back again. His fingers traced idle patterns on the sheet of the cot he leaned against. “You lot always do take yourself seriously,” he observed, “I think it’s in your blood. That being said, I see what you’re fighting. In fact, I just pointed it out to you.” His gaze flicked down to the tiled floor and back up to Peter, regarding the taller man through his lashes. His grin broadened. “When I’m discharged, promise me you’ll let me show you what you’re missing.”

Every warning bell in Peter’s mind rang at full volume, pleading for him to pay attention to it while that shiver that had crawled the length of his spine threatened a return. “It’s probably not...” Peter trailed off as Christian’s gaze refused to relent, and sighed as that ironclad will he’d summoned the day before crumbled like rocks falling into the sea. He nodded, surrendering to the admission that yes, he _wanted_ to do something reckless; something careless with this man. Even if it was against his better judgment.

“Yes,” Peter said, regarding Christian like a parent worn down by a recalcitrant child. “When you’re discharged, then we can hook up. Until then, please don’t give your nurses such a hard time.” He perked an eyebrow at the other man.

Christian lifted his good hand and traced a cross over his heart. “On my best behavior,” he said. “I’ll even return to my room all good and proper without you needing to call security.” He pushed off from the cot, heading toward the edge of the curtain before pausing. Turning his head to regard Peter once more, he mirrored the upturned eyebrow. “Do you promise to visit me tomorrow?”

The tingling returned to Peter’s groin. “I’m off tomorrow. I’ll check in on you after my shift the day after that.”

“Off tomorrow.” Christian tsked. “What a shame.” Something indistinguishable flicked across his eyes, laden with mischief and leaving Peter to wonder at its source. No sooner had it surfaced than it disappeared, Christian acknowledging its departure only with a nod of his head. “Good evening, love. We’ll see each other soon.”

“I promise.” The two words sounded impotent to Peter as he issued them forth. Something in the space which followed demanded to be filled somehow. With a kiss. With a gentle caress. He fought against it and remained stationary through Christian’s departure, even as the man emerged from the curtain, pulling his IV pole with him while gasping at one of the doctors. “Well, shit, I’m lost,” he heard Christian say, “Where do you keep the bloody cafeteria in here?” The doctor responded with normal levels of protocol and Peter surrendered to a soft chuckle as he thought about Christian playing dumb in the effort to avoid getting into trouble.

Peter felt warmth radiate through him despite himself. There was a fondness to the look in his eyes, even after he emerged from the bay and resumed taking patients for the rest of the night. He didn’t want to admit how much the other man had seeped his way into Peter’s heart already, but the evidence was there from the smile he wore for the rest of the night, to the tenor of his pace toward the subway at the end of his shift. As music played in his earbuds, he rode the train back to his apartment and settled into rest. The grin remained fixed in place, even after he fell asleep.

It wasn’t the blaring of pop music from his clock which woke him several hours later, though, nor the sounding of alarms from his phone. Peter opened his eyes, furrowing his brow as dreamscapes bled their way into reality, asking himself if he’d really heard the knocking at the door or only imagined it. When another steady rapping answered the question with more certainty, however, a yawn crested past his lips. “Just a minute,” he called out toward the entryway. “I’ll be right there.”

His eyelids felt heavy and his limbs weighted down with sandbags as he crawled out from the comfort of his sheets. As he plucked a mostly clean shirt from a pile of laundry, he pulled it over his head and threaded his arms through each of the sleeves. Padding his way down from the loft and toward the front door, he only imagined the wreck he must have looked like and couldn’t find it in his heart to care. If they were waking him from a sound sleep, they could deal with the state he’d be in. “Can I help you with some –” he said as he unlatched the lock and twisted the knob.

When the door swung open, he could hardly believe his eyes.

A grin teased at the corners of the man on the other side’s mouth, a glint in his eyes and a bag hanging from a strap slung over one shoulder. Peter blinked, his focus shifting to the crystal blue eyes of his former patient while his mind spun dizzily. “Christian?” he asked, unable to mask the presence of overwhelming confusion in his tone of voice.

“Surprise, surprise,” Christian said. While his injured arm remained useless and in a sling, the other hand clutched onto a leather briefcase.  A clean, black shirt, and fresh pair of jeans replaced the hospital gown, and a new leather coat protected one arm while being draped over the other. When Peter met the other man's gaze again, he found himself at a loss for words.

“You promised me when I was discharged that we could hook up,” he said, unapologetic with his opening gamut. His grin broadened into a wide smile. “Well, then. Here I am.”


End file.
